‘Eye-opening’ training for sex harassers

Can people learn how to respect boundaries and be ethical?

Recognizing and respecting boundaries is part of the training people receive at a national program called Professional Boundaries, created for professionals who have committed ethics violations including sexual harassment.
— Free Digital Photos

Recognizing and respecting boundaries is part of the training people receive at a national program called Professional Boundaries, created for professionals who have committed ethics violations including sexual harassment.
/ Free Digital Photos

Seven years after the sexual harassment scandal that dethroned him, a former East Coast government official is still thinking about his victims.

“If the publicity was bad for me, who was a public official and somewhat used to publicity, it had to be worse for them. Their lives were invaded. Their privacy was completely stripped away. There are lingering effects on them, even up to this present day,” said the official, who agreed to tell his story on the condition he not be identified.

He has some advice for potential harassers. “Everything I could say will sound so obvious, but I guess I’ll say it anyway. Don’t do it. You can’t get away with it. And it’s just never worth it.”

He’s in therapy and enrolled in training program called Professional Boundaries, which offers preventive and remedial boundary and ethics courses and is affiliated with UC Irvine’s medical school. “It’s not as though I have arrived. I continue to learn, and continue to get stronger,” the man said.

Mayor Bob Filner said that starting Monday, he will get two weeks of intensive therapy at an unspecified facility, followed by long-term counseling. Some have wondered if that is enough to change the behavior and thoughts of the mayor, who has been accused by at least nine women of sexual harassment and unwanted sexual advances over several years.

Therapists and trainers who specialize in sexual misconduct say how long treatment lasts is somewhat beside the point. What matters more is the patient’s acceptance of his or her actions and of the treatment.

“I’ve seen people five, ten years out that still don’t get it,” said Dr. Stephen Schenthal, the program’s founder. “They have to get to a receptive point of wanting to learn from their error and what contributed to it.”

The interview with the former government official was arranged by his therapist, who had been contacted by U-T San Diego seeking a person who had been through such a program. The man agreed to share his story because he wants to educate others about how treatment and training helped him and to prevent others from being victimized.

‘Because I wanted to’

In two months he went from being an appointed official in the legal domain overseeing 14 professionals and clerical staff reporting to becoming object of a harassment complaint.

“I had an affair with two of the secretaries,” he said in a telephone interview. “I enticed them into a relationship with me.”

His behavior started in a cloud of ambiguity: interest, friendliness, solicitude. The relationships ended before anyone caught on, and some time later the women filed a harassment complaint, which was settled. The official, who said he was in his 50s at the time, resigned and later lost his professional license.

He is upfront about why his behavior was wrong. “The truth is that, bluntly speaking, I was not put there to have sex with my secretaries. I was put there to represent the interests of the people who were assigned to me and the people who put me there,” he said. As for his victims, “I’m deeply sorry that I got involved. … I simply apologize for not respecting them and not protecting them.” Why did he do it? “The easiest way of answering is, I did it because I wanted to. Because I thought I could get away with it. I thought my actions were consensual.”